#TheRayChallenge: Stopped Eating For 3 Days & This Is How It Affected My Body (Smoothie Detox)

Have you ever felt like you’ve been eating your feelings a little too much & just need to slow down for a second? Or you’ve been gradually ruining your otherwise healthy eating habits? Or perhaps you’re tired of eating unhealthy and need to make some diet changes?

If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, then a smoothie detox could be a good idea to try out.

---

#TheRayChallenge: Stopped Eating For 3 Days & This Is How It Affected My Body (Smoothie Detox)

• Why I took on this challenge
• The 3-day detox plan
  • Breakdown of the 3-day detox plan
• How this detox affect my body
  • Other random observations & tips
• Final thoughts
• Coffee update

---

Why I took on this challenge

I have a somewhat healthy eating lifestyle that consists mainly of low carbs and fats and high protein and fibers.

I wouldn’t say I’m “ on a diet” though, because I’m not; not in the conventional sense anyway. I don’t have an end-goal I’m trying to reach. I just want to sustain a lifestyle of mindful and healthy choices when it comes to my body.

Therefore, I don’t have “free/cheat days” and I’m not depriving myself of anything I like, I just gradually trained myself to like and crave healthy food more. Yet if I’m invited somewhere and offered the types of food I’ve cut out of my diet, I will still eat it and won’t feel “guilty” about it.

So.. not on a diet.

And I have adopted this lifestyle for about 5 years now. However, recently, I have found myself drifting a little bit towards old unhealthy eating habits like overeating and eating things that generally contradict with my otherwise healthy choices, which would be fine if it is only once or twice, but it started to become a repeated thing. And every time I would keep telling myself things like “this is not a habit, I’m just craving this now, but I will easily go back to my routine.”

But then, when does it stop being an occasional craving and start becoming an eating habit?

How you form a habit is quite literally repeating one action or behaviour frequently for a specific period of time, and that’s it, it will stick. Especially if it is such a tempting and, well, delicious habit.

How To Stop Eating Junk Food And Start Eating Healthy

Because I try to be mindful and conscious of my actions, I could see that my behaviour was going to lead to more consequences than I would like to admit. (I could also see the reasons leading to this behaviour, but that’s a topic for another post.)

The point here is that: just as I gradually stopped eating unhealthy food and turned my lifestyle around a few years back, I could just as easily, also gradually, go back to a full-on junk food junkie again.

Though that wasn’t just in theory, I could actually see how this was starting to affect my body. I started feeling bloated more frequently, my skin had consistent breakouts out of nowhere, and my energy was at an all time low.

Even though I wasn’t eating unhealthy food that much by most people’s standards, it was too much for my body that hasn’t been exposed to this type of food with that frequency in a very long time.

So I felt that I needed to stop and make a quick and drastic change. I decided to cut everything off and give my body a break, to reboot and start afresh.

The 3-day detox plan

I started a 3-day vegan smoothie detox. Part of that plan was also cutting off caffeine. So for 3 days, I cut off all food and all caffeine, my only intake was water and fruit and veg smoothies.

This detox was a great way to nurture my body with a boost of nutrients (that I probably wasn’t getting much of) while giving my organs a much needed break, and also helping my body flush out any toxins.

It was my first time cutting off food completely from my diet. If anyone reading have been following me for a while, you’d probably know that I have done a number of diet challenges in the past, cutting off specific types of food like sugar or carbs, to improve my eating habits.

I have also tried detox programs before, but I would at least have salads and soup in my diet. This time however it was only smoothies, with the odd soup on Day 2.

Breakdown of the 3-day detox plan

Let me start by saying I haven’t prepared the smoothies myself, I used the help of a local shop for the feat.

Not because it’s that complicated, but simply because standing in the kitchen just doesn’t appeal to me. Adding to that, the hassle of shopping for all the ingredients. Too much work for someone who celebrates the morning they take time to go for French press coffee instead of making instant coffee.

But for people who find grocery shopping and preparing food and drinks a normal part of their daily routine, this is probably doable.

Now, back to the local shop, it is an Egyptian company called Glow. I heard about them for the first time in 2021 when I got some serious stomach trouble and needed to go on a detox. That time I tried their smoothie, soup, & salad detox. And if you follow me on IG, you probably saw I shared a lot of it in stories. 

Anyhow, I have liked them since then. In fact, I’m writing this now as I sip their Green Banana smoothie, which consists of all my favorite things: banana, green apple, spinach, and lemon.

Their ingredients are always fresh, everything is delicious, and orders are perfectly packaged and delivered in such timely manner. If you’re in Egypt, you should absolutely give them a try. (By the way, this is not sponsored.. that’s how good they are!)

Meal	Breakfast	Snack	Lunch	Snack	Dinner
Size	500ml	300ml	500ml	300ml	500ml
Day 1	Berrified	Pineapple Mango Duetto	Green Kick	Pink Lemonade	NONE (there was soup planned here that I couldn’t eat due dietary restrictions)
Day 2	Zap Me Green	Confused Strawberry	Spicy Mango Tango	Green Lemonade Basil	Coconut Curry Butternut Squash Soup
Day 3	Zap Me Green	Orange Green Swirl	Choco Loco	Pina Colada	Tropical Green

How this detox affect my body

Day 1

During the first day things felt normal, I wasn’t really missing food much. I didn’t feel anything particularly different with my body either, except for feeling a little low on energy.

I guess because it is not that foreign to my body to go a whole day without food. I have done it before, a few times—and not for healthy reasons—so it wasn’t much of a shock.

Day 2

This is when I started to feel it. First of all, by noon I was starving! I mean my stomach was filled with smoothie, so it wasn’t exactly empty, but I was hungry for food. I needed to eat anything. And everything I saw was a trigger, even a slice of plain bread. My sense of smell grew 10 times stronger and I was smelling every neighbour’s meal on the block!

As for my body, I was feeling a bit tired, I assume part of that was also due to the fact I had no caffeine. I tried to do some light stretches just to get the blood flowing without exerting myself.

I found myself napping for an hour in the afternoon and that surprisingly worked out for me. I was able to still go to bed at a reasonable hour that night, despite taking a nap, which almost never happens.

Warning: TMI ahead, but it is quite relevant I’m afraid—another thing I noticed was that I started to use the bathroom much more frequently throughout the day. I’m pretty sure it was something like every two hours.

It’s worth mentioning that I don’t drink enough water/liquids in my normal everyday life, so this sudden change of diet was definitely a reason for my kidney’s to celebrate.

Towards the end of Day 2, I could feel a bit lighter and there was an overall sense of physical comfort. One of the easiest nights I’ve fallen asleep too.

10 Different Ways Your Body Suffers When You Don’t Drink Enough Water

Day 3

To my pleasant surprise, it felt easier for the majority of the day; I only started fantasising about food again in the evening, but I soon got over it once I consumed the last smoothie of the day.

Most of the day it was fine though, perhaps for the fact I was aware it was almost over, so I was just enjoying those last few hours of feeling as light as a butterfly!

I don’t know how this happened so fast but my skin (my face) was almost clear after 2 weeks of constant breakouts.

I was still using the bathroom every 1.5-2 hours (and if I’m being honest, as much as I was glad my body was responding to this cleanse, it started to annoy me towards the end.)

I also noticed that unlike Days 1 and 2, on Day 3 I was much more active. I exercised for a longer duration, granted they were low-impact workouts, but still, I wasn’t feeling weary or tired at all.

I also didn’t need an afternoon nap. In fact, I was working out at the same time on Day 3 that I’d spent napping on Day 2.

By the end of Day 3, I was feeling much better physically, lighter, comfortable, higher energy level, bloating was gone.

However, this hasn’t only affected me physically but mentally as well, knowing I have managed to pull this off despite feeling pretty desperate to give in on Day 2, and having the willpower to to stop, reassess, and put myself back on track also gave me a sense of achievement and a real mental boost.

So, all in all I would say this was a success!

#TheRayChallenge: A 30-Day Workout Challenge (No Equipment)

Other random observations

• One organ I didn’t expect would also be getting a break during this detox was my TEETH. I haven’t “needed” my teeth for the entire duration of 3 days, that was weird, I kind of missed chewing.

• One observation I’ve made is that I didn’t realize how many things I watch and listen to that have food references or scenes of food consumption. 
  
  I’ve consciously avoided all movies and tv series, and even a few podcasts, for those 3 days, so as not to make this a more tormenting experience for myself.
  
  
• One unexpected outcome to this detox was the fact I read more in the past 3 days than I did the whole week, because I couldn’t watch anything. I also wrote my first blog post in 3 years…
  
  So, yea, definitely a success.

Quick tip:

Whether you are doing this extreme detox, or just trying to start a healthier eating lifestyle, one trick I used to do, and would advise anyone with, is to avoid any media (tv, films, ads, etc..) that would expose you to the types of food you are trying to cut off, at least in the beginning. There is just no point in making it harder on yourself than it already is.

Final thoughts

I would 10/10 recommend giving this type of cleanse a try.

Some people do a one-day only detox, while others can go for 5, 7, or even 10 days straight. I think it depends on what you’re trying to achieve with this detox.

Since I was attempting this for the first time, 3 days felt like the right period of time to gain the benefits I needed out of it, without going through extreme lengths.

If I ever need to do it again (and I probably will), I could perhaps try then and do it for 5 days and see how differently it would affect my body.

For now though, I am ready to go back to using my teeth again!

Till next time, happy days!

---

Coffee update 

It’s been exactly 6 days since I have finished this detox and I noticed a habit change that I thought is worth documenting here.

Before this detox, every morning, a cup of (instant) coffee was usually the first thing I consumed. And on some days, I would need more caffeine during the day, so I would go for a cup of black tea in the afternoon. And if for whatever reason I missed the coffee, I would generally be sleepy and tired all day. 

As mentioned earlier, during the detox, I cut off all caffeine. And I am yet to have my first cup of coffee. 

At the moment, I only drink a cup of tea around noon—not within 30 minutes of waking up. I no longer use caffeine to “wake me up” but to “sustain” my alertness levels.

Despite not acting on this knowledge before, I knew that caffeine shouldn’t be something to drink when you have just awoken, as your mind is already at its highest levels of alertness due to the release of cortisol in the brain.

So, we just need to give our brain some time to release its own natural caffeine in the morning. Midday, however, we might need that extra caffeine kick to keep us going.

I hope I will be able to maintain this habit on the long run. And that’s not to say I will never have coffee again, but it’s nice to not be dependent on it, and to have it effectively replaced by something more natural like tea (I know coffee at its essence is natural, but not the coffee I drink).

---

Have you tried this type or other type of body detox before? If yes, what was it like?

If not, would you consider giving it a try? Let me know in the comments below!